Oxford and Cambridge join elite research alliance

Oxford and Cambridge have joined a global group of 10 elite universities to collaborate in research and to exchange staff and students.

Launched in Singapore, the International Alliance of Research Universities (IARU) is a sign that even the most prestigious institutions are feeling the need to forge alliances in the global higher education market.

The new group includes Yale and Berkeley in the US and rising stars in Beijing and Singapore. It follows the creation in 1997 of Universitas 21, an international group of 17 research-intensive universities including Edinburgh, Glasgow, Birmingham and Nottingham.

Today University College London announced it had been accepted as a member of the League of European Research Universities (LERU) which includes Oxford and Cambridge.

The members of IARU are the Australian National University, ETH Zurich, National University of Singapore, Peking University, University of California at Berkeley, University of Copenhagen, the University of Tokyo, Yale University, Oxford and Cambridge. The inaugural presidents' meeting in Singapore elected Professor Ian Chubb, vice-chancellor of the Australian National University as chairman for 2006-07.

The meeting considered papers on potential IARU research collaboration, covering topics such as the movement of people, ageing and health, food and water, energy and the environment and security. Other topics included graduate education.

"The IARU is an exciting development with the potential for global benefit. It offers a chance to enhance the education of future leaders around the globe and produce research outcomes that benefit people beyond each of our national borders," Professor Chubb said.

IARU aims to give universities the opportunity to exchange ideas and experience in everything from teaching and education through to research projects with an international scope.

Professor Alison Richard, vice-chancellor of Cambridge, said: "Over the last year or so, the University of Cambridge has given serious thought to our international strategy, both from the standpoint of individual students' educational experience and from an institutional perspective. IARU offers an excellent opportunity to pursue some of the ideas that we have developed, and we look forward to working on them with our partners in the Alliance."

Dr Bill Macmillan, pro-vice chancellor at Oxford, said: "The IARU has been designed both to promote collaborative research and teaching and to enable member universities to learn from each other. We are excited by the prospect of creating opportunities for students and young researchers not just to work on problems of global significance but to do so as part of an international university community."

The IARU presidents will meet annually, with the next meeting slated to take place at the Australian National University in Canberra in 2007.

In a statement on his university's website, Professor Chubb said: "In the longer term, we plan to seek corporate/foundation/government support for research projects; perhaps convene a forum to share knowledge about the commercialisation of research and the legal and academic framework in each country; work jointly on benchmarking; and develop shared positions on key public policy issues."

Universitas 21 was set up to "facilitate collaboration and co-operation between the member universities and to create entrepreneurial opportunities on a scale that none of them would be able to achieve operating independently or through traditional bilateral alliances".

In 2001 the group launched U21Global with Thomson Learning to provide online degrees and unveiled an e-learning MBA two years later.

UCL's acceptance by the LERU was welcomed by Professor Malcolm Grant, provost of the university. "European research universities have common values and common cause, and we welcome this opportunity to become part of so outstanding a network of research institutions. I think that groupings such as this are particularly important at a time when the EU is thinking seriously about the function of research-intensive universities, about the European research commission and a possible European institute of technology," he said.